


A Past Remembered

by CricketJames



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-02 01:51:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17878832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CricketJames/pseuds/CricketJames
Summary: "We all carry inside us, people who came before us." - Liam Callanan





	A Past Remembered

_ Eyam, Derbyshire - 30,  June 1666 _

 

   He idly traced the veins on the back of her hand as they sat together, staring into the distance as the sunlight waned around them, a bright beam breaking through the tree cover here and there. She wanted to say something to break the silence. Something, anything would be better than the cloud that hung around them. She opened her mouth to speak, then snapped it closed again. What could she possibly say to make this any better?

 

They watched as Mompesson and Stanley walked cautiously down the path out of town, a cadre of three men following in their wake. They stopped at the break in the road to kneel near the well. She saw Mompesson’s hand disappear into his coat pocket and then drop something - coins most likely - into the well while Stanley and their companions hoisted large bags onto their shoulders before turning to come from whence they came.

 

“Looks like there wasn’t a lot today,” she mused in a hushed whisper.

 

“Lizzie, hush,” he breathed back. She scowled at her hands. They technically weren’t breaking any of the rules. The wooded area atop the hill they sat on was well within the boundary line of the town. Not to mention Stanley was deaf as a post and Mompesson was too wrapped up in his do-gooding to notice the breath of a whisper from a scared girl carried toward him on the wind.

 

They watched as the motley crew ambled back toward town, slower now as they were burdened by the weight of their parcels. As they reached the crest of the hill and headed down toward the village, she felt Thomas breathe deeply as he dropped his head to his bent knees.

 

“May I speak now? Or has Stanley suddenly the hearing of owl and will suss us out of our hiding place post haste?” Lizzie asked, attempting to make Thomas crack a smile. She hadn’t seen him smile in so many weeks - months, even.

 

He shot her a look, then inclined his head for her to continue. She laced her fingers with his where they rested on his knee.

 

“As I was saying, it doesn’t look like the good people of Derbyshire were able to spare much from their surely overflowing stores today.”

 

“They do what they can. We’re lucky Mompesson had the forethought to arrange the exchange.”

 

“Oh yes, let us praise the great Mompesson. He’s the reason we’re all trapped in this town like rats on a sinking ship.”

 

Thomas cut his eyes at her, “There’s no need, Lizzie.”

 

She huffed out a breath, and pushed the hair that had escaped from her cap out of her face. She knew she was being harsh, but didn’t the situation warrant it? Mompesson had all but signed their death notices when he had closed the town. Now he stood, preaching not inside the church but in the open air in the courtyard - heaven forbid the man be trapped indoors with the potential carriers - about how all townsfolk must persevere and trust in the Lord so that they all be saved. Thomas gave her hand a comforting squeeze before standing and pulling her to her feet.

 

“How many today?” she asked quietly, as they picked their way back through the woods toward town. Her query was met with silence and a stony face.

 

“Thomas? How many today? This week? Isn’t anyone keeping count?” She was growing agitated. Lizzie stopped walking, tugging on his hand to force Thomas to turn around and face her. “You aren’t protecting me, Thomas. I asked. I want to know. How many?”

 

“Five,” he answered, plainly. “Five this week. Edward Thornley, Ann Skidmore, Jane Townend, Emmott Heald, and John Swann,” he ticked off the names on his fingers as he counted.

 

She blanched at the list and allowed him to pull her along down the path.

 

“The Thornleys have lost two. The Skidmores three…” he quietly recited as they walked.

 

She closed her eyes, “Jane. That’s the Townend’s youngest. She was only two…no, three. They celebrated her birthday just past Christmas…” her voice trailed off. “Emmott and Mary Heald’s children are now orphaned and Elizabeth Swann…”

 

“Pregnant with their first child,” he finished for her. He dropped her hand to rub at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “There’s at least a dozen more in the village with the pustules. I thought we were coming to the end. We seemed to lose less in the winter and now…if I’ve kept count we’ve lost more in one month than we did the entirety of the five before.”

 

She knew his count was right. How could it not be? Thomas being one of the few able bodied and illness- free men left in the village had been all but pressed into service to assist in the burial of the dead. It was a gruesome task, and she worried for him daily. He wouldn’t let her come near him after a burial. He had been given a reprieve for the last two days, a small blessing from Mompesson.

 

He stopped walking at the crest of the hill, staring down into the village. His eyes were fixed on the church, but his gaze was far away. She could almost see the wheels turning in his mind.

 

“Love, what are you thinking?” she asked, laying a hand on his arm. He shook his head, his eyes not leaving the church.

 

“You can tell me, you know. You can tell me anything. I promise I won’t faint or run screaming,” again, trying to make him smile.

 

He pursed his lips and nodded twice before turning to her and taking her hands in his.

 

“You have to go.”

 

She blinked owlishly at him, her brown eyes darkening in confusion.

 

“Go? Go where? Mompesson closed the town. We can’t go anywhere. Are you feeling…” she reached out to touch his forehead instinctively.

 

He dodged her hand with a feint to the right before snatching her hand out of midair and grasping it between both of his own.

 

“Lizzie. You have to. You’ve got to go. Get out of here. We’ll take a few days and figure it out. There has to be a way. You can’t stay here.”

 

“What are you talking about? I’m not going anywhere,” she tried to pull her hand back and only succeeded in making him pull her closer.

 

“You are.”

 

“No. I’m not,” she said, clipping her words and snatching her hand away from his. “Are you crazy? I’m not going ANYWHERE, Thomas. I’m staying right here.”

 

“You will go. You’ll do as I say and go. Save yourself and…”

 

“And what, Thomas? Did you just conveniently remember that I’m currently carrying your child? Where the hell,” she started.

 

“Elizabeth.”

 

“Where the HELL,” she continued, “am I supposed to go? Am I to go to Grindleford? Or perhaps to Abney? Or, no, wait, maybe you expect me to somehow get myself all the way to Sheffield ON MY OWN with no aid. Thomas, everyone anywhere closer to Sheffield knows me. They know I am your WIFE. How am I to explain how, or forget how - WHY I left the village? I’ll be a pariah or just outright killed in the street. Who will miss one more poor victim from Eyam? My name will just go down in the ledgers as one more victim of the sickness, struck down at the ripe age of twenty three!” Sshe threw her hands in the air and then stalked a few paces away, hands on her hips and breathing hard. “I will not leave you here. I cannot. What you’re asking me to do is leave my entire heart here, in Eyam and go…somewhere. Wherever I went, I wouldn’t have you - or even KNOWLEDGE of your wellbeing! Don’t you see that would be impossible for me? You wouldn’t be able to do it either!”

 

Thomas ran his hands through his sandy hair, making the shorter bits at the crown of his head stand up in disarray.

 

“I don’t know what else to do! All I do know is that I cannot lose you!” Hihis voice was just this side of yelling - a volume Lizzie had yet to hear in their time together. She closed her eyes and didn’t turn to face him. Her sweet, mild mannered, green eyed boy who was loathe to raise his voice to anything, let alone her, had transformed in the span of what felt like the longest days of her life.

 

“I don’t know what else to do,” he said again, softer. She heard the thump of his weight hit the ground as he sat heavily. She turned and her heart broke all over again. He looked so broken, head between his knees and hands clasped at the nape of his neck. She went to him, her skirts billowing around her as she sank to her knees beside him, pressing a kiss to his clasped hands before resting her forehead against his shoulder.

 

“We don’t have to figure it out now,” she whispered. “Not yet.”

 

“But…”

 

“No. We’re going to go home, eat dinner, I’ll help your mother finish the mending and then we’ll go to bed. Together. We’ll wake up tomorrow, together. We’ll go about our days, together. Until it’s bad enough that we cannot see a way out - together.”

 

He unlaced his fingers and turned to face her, a small smile peeking through the dark clouds that composed his face.

 

“You’re a stubborn fool, you know that?”

 

She smiled and nudged his shoulder with hers, “Yes. But I’m your fool, and you’re mine. In sickness and in health. If this doesn’t qualify as sickness, I don’t know what does.”

 

He shook his head, standing and helping her to her feet.

 

* * *

  
  


_ Eyam, Derbyshire - 8, August 1666 _

 

Even the air around her seemed heavy. With the windows boarded and the door only opened to admit food and water - neither on any sort of schedule - the heat of the fire in the hearth only added to the intense feeling of suffocation. It seemed every inch of the house was taken by someone - or something. For a time it seemed as though something was working. What, she wasn’t sure entirely, but something seemed to be making headway against the relentless onslaught of death, even if that headway was only a drop in the proverbial bucket. She had gone outside, even in the blistering cold just months ago, to feel alive, even if only momentarily. Now, with the change of the season, that luxury was gone until the cold breath of winter crept upon the village again or until the Almighty intervened.Truth be told, she wasn’t entirely sure she would live to see this winter, nor was she positive she wanted to. It seemed the Lord had forgotten about this tiny place. This dot on the map that she was positive would go down in history as the place where one man with a savior complex condemned an entire village in one fell swoop.

 

How had they all agreed? They had watched him, proselytizing behind the pulpit that Sunday only weeks ago. Sandwiched between the doxology and benediction, he had told them, with Thomas Stanley sitting sedate in the first pew, of his plan to save them all.

 

She closed her eyes and could hear his words, forever etched on her subconscious, rattle around inside her exhausted brain.

 

“We must do our part to save our neighbor. As put forth in the book of Mark, twelfth chapter and thirty first verse: ’The second is this: Love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no commandment greater than these.’ It is our duty as brothers and sisters in Christ to protect those around us from this scourge, save them from the horrors that we ourselves have borne witness to. It is through faith, and faith alone, that Eyam shall survive. Beginning on this day, the twenty fourth of June in the year of our Lord 1666, Eyam will no longer be open. None shall pass the boundary stone to enter or exit the town. Let this scourge end here, with us.”

 

In Lizzie’s opinion, the man was a stupid git - a damn fool if she wanted to be precise about it. These were thoughts she had trained herself to keep inside. No woman in Eyam would ever speak out against the rector outside of the whispering of bedfellows. Even then, Lizzie mused, it would shock her mightily if Elizabeth, her soft spoken and kind hearted mother-in-law, would have ever breathed a negative word about Mompesson OR Stanley to John.

 

Lizzie’s hands ached along with her back, the opened blisters weeping against her skirts as she sat staring at the wood of the table, mind blank except for panic and disbelief that this was all really happening. They had buried John and Elizabeth just four days ago - four! - and in the morning they would lay to rest two more. She did not wish ill on anyone in the household, but truth be told she felt that it was unlikely Young John would live to see morning. His breathing had been unsteady all day, leaving those that remained in the home watching, waiting, and worrying. They had lost four already, one more would surely devastate Elizabeth.

 

Her eyes cast to the corner where Elizabeth sat, dutifully mending a shirt of John the Elder’s that had been rent at the shoulder weeks earlier. She puzzled at the futility of the exercise, given the owner had been buried four days ago by the hands of herself, Elizabeth, and tiny, fragile Anne who was barely big enough to hold a spade upright - let alone help carry her father’s body.

 

Dearest John. It was hard to reconcile the big, burly man who had been such a presence in the home for the entirety of the time Lizzie had been in Eyam was…gone. From the first sign of the sickness - the dark, inflamed area the size of a grape just beneath his right ear - to burial in less than two days. The house felt empty without him, despite the unrelenting sensation of being crammed in on all sides.

 

After the edict came that families were to bury their own dead, Thomas and Oner had taken to helping other families with the heart wrenching task. The cemetery was full and families were turning to open pasture - ownership be damned - to lay their beloved to rest.  Elizabeth had chosen a small patch of earth for their family, not far from the home they shared. Everything was happening too quickly for any of the traditional burial rites to occur. There were few headstones, most final resting places marked with a rough hewn wooden cross or a sizable stone with initials and two dates - dates that were often far too close together - so that any surviving relatives, if there were any, could one day replace the makeshift markers with something more permanent. Watching tiny Alice, at the tender age of seven, carefully etch her own father’s name and dates of life into a stone too heavy for her to carry had almost ended Lizzie on the spot.

 

That night, Thomas had again begged her to leave, to sneak out of the city while she was still able under the cover of darkness. He had pleaded with her - literally on his hands and knees to go, leave and save herself and the child.

 

But she couldn’t. How could she leave when all she cared about in the world was here in this tiny village? She knew things. It was true her knowledge was vague - but it was still knowledge! Surely, even the most limited grasp of what was happening to the village would be of use and could help in some way. She had held onto the hope that something she was doing would help. She made all uninfected members of the family wash as thoroughly as they could daily. She kept the small home swept and the floor clear of debris, trying desperately to not allow any sort of pest inside the home lest anyone else fall ill. She and Elizabeth burned the clothing and bedding of the deceased, despite the knowledge that those possessions could be of use to the family and would not be easily, if ever, replaced. The family had survived, and dare she say even moderately thrived, the entire ten months prior. How could they have gone so long without losing anyone when entire families were disappearing all around her? It seemed they were in a small oasis, untouched by the plague that raged around them. She did all she knew to do, all she could do given the resources around her. She’d never seen plague before - it had been gone for so long that she hadn’t even spared a thought to consider it. If she had, could she have saved them all? Would it have mattered? Why hadn’t she been affected?

 

She didn’t have time, or the energy if she was being completely honest with herself, to entertain the thought for long. The day had been long. Unending. Horrible. What little amount of space she had in her head for conscious thought was really focused on one thing and one thing only.

 

Thomas.

 

Her sweet, sandy haired Thomas.

 

Gone.

 

Stolen away from her in the darkest hours of the night when her eyes had slipped shut only briefly. She would never forgive herself, ever, for allowing her guard to slip and the sleep deprivation she had been fighting for over a week take over. Unlike his father, he hadn’t been taken quickly. The death toll had not abated in the days after the town had been insulated. If anything, the numbers had grown exponentially with the town burying as many as eight people in a single day. There was not a single day that went by that a life wasn’t lost, a loved one wasn’t laid forever to rest. Lizzie felt like a fool for thinking that somehow she and Thomas would escape, that they would somehow, someway, make it through this darkness and live a life of peace and happiness on the other side. Now all she could see was darkness, ever present and pressing down on her from all sides.

 

* * *

  
_ Eyam, Derbyshire - 13, August 1666 _

 

   There was nothing left. The house, which had once felt large and full of life in comparison to Lizzie’s former home, was completely empty. Devoid of any of the charm and character that once had delighted her, thrilled her, and welcomed her into its warm familial embrace.

 

Elizabeth sat across the table, staring at a slice of bread. The table between them stretched far too big for two people, having once comfortably sat twelve. Nothing moved outside - animal or human. The animals of Riley farm long since sacrificed to feed a starving family. The only two souls left alive on this patch of earth were Lizzie and Elizabeth. Two Elizabeths. Lizzie had long known that her name, according to both her mother and the parish priest, bore the meaning of consecrated to God. How could she ever have known how literal that meaning would come to be?

 

Elizabeth pushed the plate and untouched bread away from her and looked up at Lizzie.

 

“You have to go,” she said quietly.

 

Lizzie blinked at her, surely she must have misheard her.

 

“Pardon?”

 

“You have to go,” Elizabeth repeated.

 

“I…I’m not…” Lizzie stammered, unsure of the intent of her mother-in-law’s words.

 

“I spoke to Thomas,” Elizabeth continued. Lizzie’s eyes bugged and Elizabeth allowed the beginnings of a smirk to show in the lines of her weary face. “Before. I spoke to Thomas before he...He told me that if there came a time that it seemed all was lost that I must force you to go.”

 

Lizzie was silent, her jaw dropped leaving her mouth slightly open as she tried to process Elizabeth’s words. She shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs, “Thomas and I spoke of it too, just after the town was closed. I told him I wasn’t going, and I’ll say the same to you.”

 

“There is nothing keeping you here,” Elizabeth said softly, standing and crossing around the table to sit next to Lizzie.

 

“You! You are here!” Lizzie said, a tinge of panic creeping into her voice.

 

Elizabeth sighed, her eyes slipping closed, as she reached out to caress the younger woman’s cheek.

 

“Lizzie, I’m an old woman who has lost almost everything I cared about in this world. I buried my husband and six children and yet bear no symptom of this pestilence myself. The only thing left in this world that I care about is you and the child you carry.” Lizzie blinked rapidly, a hand dropping to her stomach. “Thomas told me, though I had my own suspicions.”

 

“That rat,” Lizzie breathed.

 

“He never was able to keep much of a secret,” Elizabeth mused. “He was always the first to inform me of his brothers’ wrongdoings and would almost always betray his own secrets in the process.”

 

“That sounds like my Thomas.”

 

Elizabeth smiled, a true smile, and rested her hand on top of Lizzie’s. “If I can do one thing right in this time of hell on Earth, let it be saving you and the child. Just knowing that you’re gone from this place and safe would let me rest my weary bones. Let me go to my grave knowing that there is someone out there who carries on the memory of our family and doesn’t let our existence fall to dust and escape on the wind.”

 

“I just…” Lizzie started, her breath catching in her throat as a sob threatened to escape.

 

“It is what Thomas wanted, it is what I want, and I know if John were with us he would be telling you to go as well. If you look inside, I think it is what you want, too.”

 

Lizzie gave a quick jerk of her head in assent, almost not by her own volition, as tears ran freely down her face and neck, pooling on her collarbones.

 

“We’ll come up with a plan, you and I. No one will think much of two ladies alone in this big house. We have time - though not a lot, a day at most - to put things in order. I’ll help you as much as I can.”

 

“But what will you do?” Lizzie asked, forcefully wiping at the tears that refused to stop flowing, stemming the running of her nose with the back of her hand.

 

“Manage. It’s what mothers do. You’ll learn that one day soon. Now, let us clear this table and sleep. Our beloved will visit us in dreams and we’ll set about determining the next step forward in the morning.”

 

Lizzie nodded, sniffing one last time and wiping her eyes on the hem of her skirt. The ladies cleared the two plates and two cups in silence, stowing the untouched bread back in the cupboard. As they bid their goodnights and turned to retire to their own sleeping areas, Lizzie turned back.

 

“Elizabeth?”

 

“Yes, dear?”

 

“Thank you.”

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> A/N: It has always bothered me that Diana refuses to write the backstory of her own leading lady, so this is my attempt to remedy that. That being said, be patient. It’s going to take a few (though not many) parts/chapters for things to connect! I promise Claire will appear soon(...ish). 
> 
> Thank you so much to my cheerleaders, my beta queens (you know who you are), and my Mistress of History (we’ll work on the title)! I couldn’t have done this without you!
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated! If you feel like yelling at me on Twitter, you can find me @singhappy02 or on tumblr at cricketjames.tumblr.com


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